Forever
by A. Minerva
Summary: Jess and Rory, but not necessarily lit... yet... or ever... I'm evil. Read to find out what I'm talking about, but only review if the spirit moves you.
1. His Mistake

This takes place right after the phone call that Rory gets from Jess in the season three finale. I hope you like it. I came up with this idea in the middle of the night, and it's really different. I've never read anything with the same plot, you just have to wait for it to get started. Enjoy! ~Thena  
  
"Jess, is that you? Jess, I'm pretty sure it's you and I'm pretty sure you've been calling and not saying anything but wanna say something. Hello? You're not going to talk? Fine, I'll talk. You didn't handle things right at all. You could've talked to me. You could've told me that you were having trouble in school and weren't going to graduate, and that your dad had been there, but you didn't. And you ended up not taking me to my prom and not coming to my graduation and leaving again without saying goodbye again, and that's fine, I get it, but that's it for me. I'm going to Europe tomorrow and I'm going to Yale and I'm moving on. And I'm not going to pine. I hope you didn't think I was going to pine, okay? I think. . .I think I may have loved you, but I just need to let it go. So, that's it, I guess. Um, I hope you're good. I want you to be good, and, um, okay, so, goodbye. That word sounds really lame and stupid right now, but there it is. Goodbye."  
  
He held onto the phone until he heard the dial tone, and then the familiar yet annoying voice of the woman who was instructing him to hang up or press '0' to talk to an operator. He let the phone slide down until he was only holding it by his fingertips, and then dropped the phone with a clack onto the receiver.  
  
She had loved him. And he had blown it. How could he have been such an idiot? But he had no chance now. He had really ruined that, forever. He should have known. He did know. He had seen it coming for so long. She was so much better than he was. She deserved so much more than he had to offer. She was going to Yale for chrissakes. An Ivy League school, and here he was, couldn't even graduate high school.  
  
That wasn't exactly true. He could have graduated if he'd wanted to. He definitely could have. He just didn't. And now all that he felt was regret. If he had only worked a little bit more. Just worked to his full potential, or not even, just passed a few more tests, been to a few more classes, listened to Luke and quit that stupid job at Wal-Mart…  
  
He wouldn't have been so upset at that party. He would have been able to get prom tickets. He would have been able to take Rory to her prom. And he wouldn't have forced himself on her. That was what he regretted the most. If only he had not forced himself on her, maybe the other stuff wouldn't have mattered. But he had, and now he had proven everyone else who had doubted him right. He was just an awful city boy, with one thing on his mind.  
  
Well, that was how everyone would see it. And he didn't blame them. But that wasn't how he had intended it. All he wanted was to… he wasn't even sure anymore. He had been sitting up there, moping about how he had let her down, about how he would have to tell her that he couldn't take her to the prom, about how he couldn't go to college. And there she had been. Perfect. Beautiful. He had kissed her, and then, instead of reminding himself as he usually had to every 6 seconds not to push her, he had. But he hadn't meant to. It had just been instinctive. And now, he could never make it right. She would never trust him in the same way again.  
  
He didn't deserve her. She was way too good for him. This… this epitome of perfection. Always out of his reach. So here he was, in California, far, far away from her. And that was how it had to be. He had to be as far away from her as possible, so he didn't have to see her with someone else. If he saw her with someone else… god. He would kill himself. And she would be with someone else. She had said it herself. She was over him.  
  
He couldn't be near her at all. She was in Europe, and then she would be at Yale. And he was going to make himself better for her. He knew that he would probably never see her again, and if she did, he wouldn't even be able to hope that she would take him back. But he had to prove to her that he could be better. Even if she never found out. 


	2. Memories

Sorry this took so long to update! I started this story because I was having trouble with my other one, and now I'm having no trouble with my other story, and a harder time with this one.  
  
This chapter is really short, I know, but in the next chapter, Rory is off to Yale, and I wanted that to be alone. Don't worry. It'll be up really soon. Anyways, enjoy! -----  
  
Lorelai and Rory got back from their trip in Europe in the middle of August, with just two weeks left of summer vacation before Rory went to Yale. Rory still hadn't heard from Jess. She had told him over the phone that she wasn't going to pine, and she had tried desperately not to. At least, she had tried hard to hide it when she was pining.  
  
She couldn't exactly pinpoint what it was about Jess that made her need him so much. Maybe it was that he wasn't only her boyfriend, but her best friend. They were both on the same level. They loved the same things. They could spend an afternoon together, and both of them would be completely happy with what they were doing.  
  
And she had loved him. She had had a lot of time to think about it, and she had definitely loved him. And, she hated to admit to herself, she still did love him. And she thought she probably always would. But she couldn't go back to him, beg him to take her back. They were both going to lead different lives now, and there was no way they would be able to get back what they had.  
  
As soon as they got back from Europe, they dropped their stuff in the front hall of their house, and simultaneously demanded that they go to Luke's for coffee. The walk to Luke's took much longer than either of them had expected, mainly because they ran into Patty and Babette, who wanted to hear everything about their trip. They finally made it to the diner and found a table. Rory half expected to see that scowling head of jet black hair come by to pour her coffee, but she knew that that wasn't going to happen. Jess was gone.  
  
Luke saw them from behind the counter and smiled a very broad smile. He grabbed two mugs and the coffee pitcher and came over to pour them coffee.  
  
"You're back! How was it?'  
  
"Wow," Lorelai said to Rory, "we didn't even have to ask. Such service."  
  
"It was great Luke. How was the cruise?"  
  
"Oh, it was alright."  
  
"Alright?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Care to elaborate?" Lorelai asked.  
  
"Nicole and I broke up."  
  
"Oh," Lorelai said, "I'm sorry Luke."  
  
"Yeah, well, we had our differences. The cruise was fine, but we broke up a week or so after we got back."  
  
"Sorry."  
  
"You said that already. It's fine."  
  
"Sit with us! We'll tell you everything."  
  
"The other customers. . . "  
  
"Will be fine!" Lorelai interrupted, "There are three other people here, and they don't need anything right now. Don't you want to hear about our trip?"  
  
"Fine." Luke placed the coffee pot on their table and pulled up another chair. By the time he sat down, Lorelai was already replenishing her and Rory's cups.  
  
"No way," Luke said, taking the coffee pot away from her. "There is NO WAY you two are even TOUCHING this pot. I will be monitoring coffee intake."  
  
"But Luke. . ." the girls whined simultaneously.  
  
"So, where did you start off?"  
  
@@@@@  
  
Rory flopped down on her bed. She had missed this bed. All of the beds throughout Europe were different. Harder, softer, smaller, smelled funky. This was her bed, and she was finally back.  
  
She inhaled deeply, her face in her pillow. For some reason, when she exhaled, she exhaled tears.  
  
Jess. She missed him so much. She had missed him in Europe, but now she was back in Stars Hollow, where they had been together. All of the things that she saw around her reminded her of times when he was here.  
  
At least she would be going off to Yale soon. Yale would be another anonymous place, like Europe had been. She wouldn't have to think about Jess as much. Maybe, some day, she would be able to forget about him. But until then, being home would always be painful. She exhaled again. Just two more weeks until school started. Just two more weeks until she could escape all of these memories. 


	3. A Piece of Her

Originally, I thought that I would make this story mainly from Rory's point of view only. But I've decided that, at least for now, I'm going to make every other chapter Jess. So the odd numbered chapters will be Jess' point of view, and the evens will be Rory. Oh, and btw, point of view for me means third person, just describing that particular person.  
  
-----  
  
So that was it. He'd just left the headmaster's office at the local public school. He would be starting as a senior, graduating class of 2004, at Venice Beach High at the end of August. And he was going to work hard. For once in his life, he had something to work for, and he wasn't going to mess it up. He actually had a plan. He was going to go to college, the best he could get into. And then he was going to do. . . something.  
  
He hadn't even gotten that far yet. Oh well. He would figure something out. And he would do something with his life so that he didn't feel like such a nobody. So that he didn't feel as if he didn't even come close to deserving Rory. He sighed. He never would deserve Rory. She was the epitome of the unattainable. But the closer he got to being able to deserve her, the better.  
  
He never planned on doing anything about it. It was going to be like those childhood crushes that everyone has. That they never plan on telling the other person about. This was how it was going to be with Rory from now on.  
  
The hardest part was that it was a step backwards. He had been so close to her, and now. . . now he was out of her life forever. But she would never be out of his. It was all because of her that he had even re-enrolled in high school.  
  
He sat down on a bench that looked out onto the ocean. It kind of bothered him tat wherever he went there were people. That seemed odd to him, seeing as he had spent the majority of his 18 years in New York City, but Stars Hollow had grown on him. He'd liked that everyone was in their homes by midnight, and he'd liked that no matter what, he could always find somewhere to be alone.  
  
This was as good as it was going to get here. The bench that he had chosen wasn't right on the boardwalk and there were no hot dog or ice cream stands too nearby, so the traffic was at its minimum. He pulled a book out of his back pocket and began to read. The book was called Wiseguy, and it was relatively good. It had been turned into a movie, and this was one of the few times where he had to admit that the movie was better than the book.  
  
After about an hour or so, he finished the book and placed it next to him. He was still hungry to read. There was an emptiness he felt that he had to fill, and he was doing it the only way he knew how. He rose and placed the book in his back pocket. He started down the street towards a small secondhand bookstore he had been frequenting since he had arrived.  
  
He had learned to blend in a bit better since he had gotten here. He had chosen khaki cargoes in place of the darker shades, and he had abandoned the leather. Still, he was a wallflower. In a world filled with hippies and beach bums, he still looked like an out-of-place Metallica fan. With his dark hair and stony expression, he was extremely unavoidable. And if that wasn't clue enough for people to get lost, he was wearing the shirt he had worn the day he showed up at his Uncle Luke's, asking to move back to Stars Hollow: a shirt with a picture of a butt with two hands flipping off anyone who chanced to look at it.  
  
He HAD to stop thinking about Stars Hollow, he decided. He walked into the bookstore and nodded at the proprietor. He and Ben, the owner, had never conversed, no matter how many times Jess came in. Both of them were quiet types, and neither had any need for the companionship of the other. Still, Jess liked the constancy of Ben being there. It almost reminded him of the predictability of a small town he knew.  
  
He forced the idea out of his head and began to look for a book. Once he was lost in someone else's world, he wouldn't have to think about his own.  
  
He played a game that he almost always played with himself in bookstores. He ran one index finger across all the bindings, glancing at each title, not stopping until he was forced to subconsciously. It never failed.  
  
His heart dropped to his knees when he saw the title on a binding. Well, it wasn't so much the title as the author. Ayn Rand. He tried to force himself to keep walking. He was supposed to be cutting himself off from all things related to. . . to his past life. But here it was, staring him in the face.  
  
He tried to make his feet move. He tried to continue down the row of books. But instead, he felt his finger slide up to the top of the binding and tilt the book towards him, causing the volume to come sliding into his hand.  
  
He felt the weight of the book and stared at the cover momentarily before he walked to the counter and set the book down. He dropped three dollars down on the counter and walked out without stopping to collect his change.  
  
Instead of returning to the bench, he had a strange idea. A strange longing to climb a tree he saw about two blocks down from the bookstore.  
  
He climbed up and found a sturdy branch to sit upon, his feet each resting on a separate branch below him. He held the book in his fingertips and stared at the cover, not opening the book or beginning to read. For some reason, now, he felt as if he were holding. . . her. It was like this book was a part of her. He stared at the cover like that for a long while before swinging down from the tree and shoving the book in his other pocket. He walked nonchalantly down the street, all the while thinking of the copy of Atlas Shrugged he was carrying in his pocket. This piece of the girl he had loved and always would love. 


	4. What She Realized

Hey all! Sorry this took so long to get up. I've had no internet for a while. I know that everyone keeps saying this story is moving slow, and believe me, I know. Rory's story will be speeding up fairly soon, but Jess is going to be pining for a little while longer. I promise you won't be disappointed though.  
  
-----  
  
Rory was sprawled in the middle of the living room as music blasted from a boom box. Lorelai carried a huge pile of clothing over and dumped it on the floor.  
  
"OK," Rory said, "we're gonna do this methodically. You hold something up, I'll tell you if it goes."  
  
"But what about when my arms get tired?"  
  
"Then I'll start holding stuff up."  
  
"I'm bored. . ."  
  
"Mom! You said you'd help me pack!"  
  
"OK, OK."  
  
They went through article after article of clothing, placing things in trunks and casting others aside. Finally, they were done, and Rory closed and locked each of the trunks and restored the clothing that she wasn't taking to her room.  
  
Lorelai collapsed dramatically onto the couch. "That was so TIRING!"  
  
"Mom," Rory said, dragging the trunks to the corner of the room and stacking them one on top of the other, "You barely did anything."  
  
Lorelai ignored her. "Let's get coffee."  
  
"Just hmmph one second." Rory dragged the last trunk to the corner of the room.  
  
"Alright, let's go." Rory walked towards the door.  
  
"No!" Lorelai said, "Help me up first!"  
  
Rory rolled her eyes, but she gave her mother her hand and hoisted her up out of her chair.  
  
"Better?" Rory asked.  
  
"Much. C'mon, let's go."  
  
@@@@@  
  
Only a few short days later, and Rory and Lorelai were moving the trunks from the living room out to the car.  
  
"OK," Rory said, "One. . . two. . . three. . . lift!" Rory's end of the trunk came off the floor about two inches, but Lorelai's didn't budge. "Mom!"  
  
"Yeah. . . I'm calling Luke." Lorelai went over to the sofa and dug through the cushions to find the phone. She searched the bathroom, the kitchen, and Rory's room, but she couldn't find the phone.  
  
"Mom! Just use your cell phone. And hurry. I want to go soon."  
  
"OK, OK.  
  
Lorelai pulled her cell phone out of the pocket of her jeans and dialed the familiar number.  
  
"Luke?" she whined, "Can you come help us get Rory's stuff into the car? . . . Now?. . . Like, five minutes. . . let Caesar. . . OK. See you soon. Bye."  
  
She flipped the phone shut and slid it back into her pocket. "He's coming," she announced.  
  
"Oh, good," Rory responded. After that, she was quiet for a while. Lorelai came over to where she was sitting on the couch and sank down next to her.  
  
"What's wrong baby cakes?"  
  
"Nothing. I'm just. . . I've been thinking for so long about this. Waiting for it. And now. . . well, now I'm just scared."  
  
"Oh, sweetie," Lorelai leaned in and hugged her, "You'll be fine. You'll be great. Don't even start to worry about that."  
  
They heard a coughing noise and saw that Luke was standing in the doorway. "Sorry," he said, embarrassed at interrupting their mother-daughter moment.  
  
"No problem Luke," Rory said, "thanks for coming."  
  
"Oh, it's fine. What did you need me to help you carry?"  
  
Lorelai pointed at the trunks in the corner, and Luke picked one up and carried it to the door. "Can one of you get the door for me?" Rory got up and ran to the door, opening it and holding it for Luke.  
  
She then followed him outside and opened the trunk for him. He finished loading the car and then he slammed the trunk shut. "That should do it," he said.  
  
"Thanks Luke," Lorelai said.  
  
"OK, well, I should be getting back. . ." He started off for the diner. Rory surprised him by wrapping her arms around him in a hug. "Thanks Luke."  
  
Luke paused for a moment before he wrapped his arms around Rory too. "We'll miss you around here, kiddo. Don't be a stranger."  
  
"I won't be. I'll be back soon."  
  
"Oh, I almost forgot!" Luke reached into his back pocket and pulled out a book. Rory drew a ragged breath, remembering someone else who used to carry books in his back pocket. "Jess left this here. It was the only thing that was left in his room when he left. I don't know why. . ." Rory reached out and took the book. She saw that it was A Farewell to Arms, Hemmingway. One of Jess' favorites.  
  
"Thanks Luke."  
  
"All right, well, there's a thermos for you two in the front seat. So I think you're all set. Bye."  
  
"Bye Luke," they said, climbing into the car.  
  
"Ooh, isn't Luke perfect?" Lorelai asked, taking a huge sip from the thermos of coffee Luke had left them.  
  
"Hey! Hey! Don't hog it all!" Rory said, taking the thermos. They fought over it until every last drop was gone, and then they just sat in silence for a while, each lost in thought.  
  
To Rory, it seemed like only minutes before they had unpacked her room, found the phone that had been misplaced at home in one of her trunks, and she was saying goodbye to her mother for the longest time they had ever been apart. Both were teary as they shared last goodbyes, and Rory watched out the window as her mother walked away from the dorm to catch a train back to Stars Hollow, leaving the blue Prius in the school parking lot.  
  
Rory's roommate did not arrive until one o'clock that afternoon. She knew from a card she had received in the mail that her name was Lexie and that she was from Los Angeles. Rory was reading Emma on her bed when Lexie arrived.  
  
Lexie was a slight blond girl with piercing green eyes and several silver earrings in each ear. Her hair was so curly it looked like it was in dreads. Lexie arrived alone. No one was there to help her carry her stuff up the room, so as soon as Rory saw her enter, she went over, introduced herself, and helped her carry her stuff up from the green station wagon that she had brought to school.  
  
Lexie was an extremely friendly, outgoing girl, and as she was unpacking, Rory sat cross-legged on her own bed and they got to know each other. By that evening at dinner time, both girls felt as if they had known each other forever.  
  
After dinner, each girl went into her own part of the suite they were sharing and went to bed. Rory put her head on the pillow and immediately felt a severe feeling of sadness wash over her. She identified the source almost immediately. It wasn't her mother. Though she missed Lorelai, that wasn't what was making her sad. It wasn't the quirky little town she had grown up in, or the familiar bed she had left behind. No, it wasn't something she had left, but rather something that had left her. Someone. Jess. She was crying for Jess, for she was crying by now, and she couldn't figure out why. Then suddenly, like a slap across the face, she felt it. She realized what it was. She was in love. And she had realized it only a few months too late. 


	5. Life From Now On

Jess had been staying with Jimmy for over three months now. Three months and he barely ever saw the man who called himself his father. If he hadn't vowed to change, he would have run at that very second, but he had changed, and that was how he found himself at Venice Beach High at eight o'clock in the morning on a Monday morning.  
  
All he experienced the entire time was déjà vu. It wasn't the same people, but they were the same kind of people. They were those annoying kind. The kind with the high-pitched giggles and nothing upstairs but designer names and sports teams' averages.  
  
He found a seat in his first class. His first instinct was to go to the back of the classroom, but then he remembered his vow to himself, and instead chose a seat in the middle. The rest of the class trickled in, followed, finally, by an aging hippie of a teacher.  
  
"All right class, I hope your summers were good. . . welcome to Senior Honors English!"  
  
The class began to clap and cheer when the teacher said, "senior", but Jess just kind of sank into his chair. He had already been a senior. He just needed to graduate now.  
  
"My name is Paul, and I will be your English teacher this year."  
  
Jess had an extreme urge to reach for the copy of "The Jesus Factor" he was carrying in his backpack, but he kept reminding himself that he was going to be good this year. He was going to pay attention. He was going to graduate.  
  
"I'm passing a syllabus around now. It has a list of books we'll be reading this year. You should pick them up today or tomorrow and start reading the first: Great Expectations.  
  
Great Expectations? Great Expectations in senior English? He'd read that in middle school. Whatever. He had no problem with reading Dickens as many times as they wanted him to. At least it wasn't a bad book. His teacher began telling the class his life story. Oh brother. Jess had to sustain the reflex to grab for his book again. He pretended to pay attention, while really he was playing a story in his head. Another of Dickens' books: Oliver Twist.  
  
Sometimes, on the rare occasion when he didn't have a book, Jess picked a book he almost knew by heart and read it in his head. He interrupted the story for a few seconds to listen to what the format for the life story he was going to have to tell would be when it got to his turn, and then he returned to Twist. When the girl sitting next to him spoke, he stopped and listened, waiting for his turn.  
  
"My name is Jenna Greenberg. I've been going here all my life pretty much. . . uh, I live with my parents and my little sister, Ruth. . . Oh, and my favorite book is 'Gossip Girls.'"  
  
Jess had to refrain from physically shuddering. With all the fabulous literature out there, she had to pick the quintessential girl book. He observed her for a moment: she was wearing jeans and a pink tank top. She had her hair in a side ponytail: the kind where you try to make it look like you just got out of bed, but manage to use up thirty minutes making it like that. Hmm. . . they had something in common.  
  
"My name is Jess Mariano. I'm from. . ." he paused for a moment before saying "New York City. I'm living with my dad. And as for a favorite book. . . it's a tie between Oliver Twist and The Sun Also Rises." He caught blank stares from everyone except the teacher. "Hemingway," he added, sitting down.  
  
He restrained himself for the third time from not grabbing that book. This was going to be a long year.  
  
At the end of the class, he strolled out and over to his locker. When he got there, he realized that Jenna from his English class was right next to him. She kind of reminded him of Shane, from Stars Hollow.  
  
He forced the name of the small town out of his head almost immediately. He wasn't going to think about that. He wasn't going to allow himself to.  
  
"Hi," she said, "I'm-"  
  
"Jenna." He cut her off. "From English."  
  
"Yeah," she said. "And you're Jess. From New York."  
  
"The one and only."  
  
"That's cool. I've always wanted to go to New York. . . So. I was wondering if maybe you wanted to hang out. After school."  
  
"Uh. . ." he paused for a moment. He felt as if he was betraying Rory. Then he realized that he wasn't, and he never would again, because Rory wasn't his anymore. He had no affect on her anymore. "Sure. Why not?"  
  
He wasn't particularly drawn to Jenna, except for the fact that she was, for some reason, drawn to him. That created a spark of interest. Why did she care? She undoubtedly had her own friends. Why would she bother with the new kid?  
  
"Cool," Jenna said. "Let's meet in front of school, on the front steps after seventh. OK?"  
  
"Sure thing," he said, forcing a smile. He wondered if everything from now on in his life would feel like this. Now that he didn't have Rory, would his life always feel the same as it did now, as he talked to Jenna? Like a play. Cold. Stone. Fake. 


	6. A Friend

Rory had expected Yale to be hard. There was no doubt in her mind all those years that she had been wishing and hoping to go to an Ivy League school that it would be difficult. But she realized, once she had gotten into the groove of things, that Chilton had prepared her well.  
  
She had developed a routine: she had 2 classes in a row in the morning, and then an hours worth of free time where she started her homework. Then she had three more classes and then lunch, which she usually ate with the people in her English class which was right before lunch. Sometimes, if they finished early, the seven of them would go to the library and do the assignment that they had just received, thus lessening the amount of homework to do that night. Then Rory had one more class and then she had a completely free afternoon. That hour in the morning got much of her homework done, and she often found herself with nothing to do in the late afternoons, especially since she hadn't yet joined any clubs. One day, after finishing one of the books from her personal library, she decided to get out on the campus and look around. She hadn't really met very many people, and she was beginning to feel like an introvert.  
  
She grabbed a bag and put her wallet and keys in it. She replaced "David Copperfield", the book she had just finished, on her bookshelf and reached out for another to carry in her bag. She scanned the titles, and she felt all of her insides come plummeting down to the bottom of her spine. It was Jess' book. The one that Luke had given her. She hadn't opened it since she'd received it: she was sure that Jess had written in it. She couldn't bare to watch the familiar scrawl on the pages. In fact, she had found herself replacing many of her favorite volumes that Jess had written in. The one she had owned, lined up on the shelf next to the new one. And she would only read the new ones. She couldn't bear to see his thoughts on the page too. It hurt too much.  
  
Rory looked away from the Hemingway novel and grabbed a copy of Time and Again, which she slipped into her bag. She grabbed her dorm keys on the way back and locked her door. She and Lexie had decided to lock their door when no one was there, and Lexie was at field hockey practice.  
  
Rory walked to the main campus and walked to the building that contained the mailroom. She checked her mail: there were some all school notices which she discarded and a letter from Emily. Rory read it and then slipped it into her purse so that she would remember to write back.  
  
Rory began to scan the bulletin boards for interesting announcements. One caught her eye: a book club. There was an informational meeting starting at 7:00 in the library. She checked her watch and saw that there was an hour before it started. She decided to go to the library and read until the meeting started.  
  
She walked to the huge building and into the main lobby. She walked straight through and into the stacks. She already had a favorite part of the library. In the fiction section of the stacks, between the M and P shelves. She liked to sit on the floor with her back up against one shelf and her feet against another, just reading. People seldom bothered here there, and she liked it. She found, however, when she reached her spot that there was already someone there. She was slightly annoyed, but then she watched the person for a moment.  
  
He seemed completely immersed in his book. He was wearing a long, gray trenchcoat and a coal-gray wool hat over a head of shaggy blond hair. He had a long, pale face and gray eyes. She looked at his hands, holding the hardcover volume. They were large and square and strong, but he was holding his book gently. She decided that if she sat down he wouldn't bother her: he seemed too involved in reading. She sat on the other end of the aisle that the two shelved created. She put her bag down next to her and took out her book and began to read. She forced herself to check her watch at the end of every chapter so that she wouldn't miss the meeting. At five to seven, she reluctantly rose and put her book in her bag. She glanced over at the boy, who was still sitting where he had been when she had arrived. She wanted to introduce herself, but she couldn't bring herself to interrupt him. Just as she was about to leave, she glanced at the title of the book he was reading.  
  
"The Fountainhead?" she almost screamed. The boy looked up startled. "Sorry," Rory said, flustered. "I didn't mean to disturb you. I just saw. . ." she gestured at his book. "It's my favorite," she said, quietly.  
  
"Yeah?" he said. He closed the book, holding his place with his finger to look at the title. "She's brilliant, huh?" he said.  
  
"Yeah. I'm Rory, by the way."  
  
"Oh, I'm Sebastian."  
  
"Well. . ." Rory said, getting up, "I guess I should go."  
  
"You're going?"  
  
"Yeah, I'm going to this informational meeting about a book club."  
  
"Book club, you say?" Sebastian said, standing up, "Maybe I'll tag along. Sounds like fun. You don't mind?"  
  
"Oh no, of course not," Rory answered, and the two walked off towards the main lobby. 


	7. Running His Hands Through Her Hair

Jess is lying on his bed reading, as usual. It seemed that all he does is read, now more than ever. He comes "home", to Jimmy's, does his homework, which is insanely easy, and then he reads until his eyelids can no longer stay opened. His life is pure monotony now, but he isn't complaining. He can't. It was all his fault.  
  
He has been here nearly four months now, attending school for one out of the four, and he still sometimes wakes up and thinks he is in the tiny apartment over the diner. Sometimes he keeps his eyes closed and plays out a scenario in his head: Luke comes in, yells at him to get up, he stumbles to the shower, combs his hair, walks down the stairs, and sees. . .  
  
And then he forces himself to stop. He can never continue. It's too hard. Too painful. He's forever hitting himself over the head for being so stupid. For letting the best thing that ever happened to him get away so easily.  
  
He finds refuge in books. He escapes through the stories, the characters. Sometimes, he almost forgets what's real. What's true. He likes forgetting.  
  
Suddenly he hears the sharp ringing of the clumsy princess phone he put on the card table by his bed, $4.99 at a garage sale. He waits two rings and then picks it up, holding the receiver to his ear.  
  
"Hello?"  
  
"Jess?" It's Jenna. It's always Jenna. It's been Jenna every night for the past month. He can't say he's completely annoyed by her incessant phone calls. She's chatty. Doesn't mind when he has nothing to say. Doesn't even usually notice.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Hey, it's Jenna. Whatcha doing?"  
  
"Reading."  
  
"I should have guessed. Too busy to come out and play?"  
  
"What kind of play?"  
  
"A party. At Jeff Damien's. Interested?"  
  
"Not particularly."  
  
"Yes! Yes you are! Come on Jess. . ."  
  
"Fine."  
  
"Pick me up in half an hour?"  
  
"Sure thing."  
  
He drops the phone back on the receiver. Jenna's persistent. Kind of like Lorelai in that regard. Not quite as bad, but pretty bad. He forces thoughts of Lorelai out of his head before thoughts of the senior Lorelai lead to thoughts of the junior one. He finds forcing thoughts away have become a reflex for him. It doesn't help much. He still hurts. It's a hurt that will never go away. Something he'll have to learn to live with.  
  
He rises from the bed and walks over to the dresser. He stands in front of it for a moment or two before deciding not to change. It doesn't really matter anyways. He glances in the mirror, retousles his hair. He grabs his wallet and house keys.  
  
He walks down the stairs and right out the front door without so much as a goodbye to Jimmy. He feels more like an anonymous boarder in a boarding house than a long-lost son come to stay. He sees Jimmy maybe once or twice a week, Sasha and Lily maybe a little more. He doesn't stick around much. Doesn't make an effort, and neither do they. It's an odd relationship, but it's been working. Sometimes Jess misses Luke asking him where he's going, even if he never did answer him.  
  
He picks Jenna up at her house like she asked. She looks nice, but he doesn't take much notice. He appreciates Jenna. Her incessant rambling sometimes helps him to forget. Forgetting is always good. If he hadn't promised himself to be good, he might start some of the hard stuff to forget like he's sure some of his friends in New York already have.  
  
Jenna rambles on in the car ride on the way to the party. Jess nods as he drives, but he isn't really paying attention. As soon as they get to the party, Jess walks to the keg. Then he remembers his promise to himself, to be good, and takes a Coke instead. He finds a chair and sits with his drink and watches the other people.  
  
Jenna has already sought out her friends and they have formed a circle in the middle of the room, talking and swaying from side to side in time to the music. Jess watches the back of one of her friends: a slight brunette. When he watches her hair sway from side to side, his breath catches in his throat. He can't deal with this. Will he always be in this much pain? Is he going to suffer forever because of one mistake? Maybe. . .  
  
He watches the girl again. He watches the light reflecting off her hair. If only he could hold Rory one more time. Run his hands through her hair. 


	8. Crying in the Stacks

This is going kind of slow... sorry about that. Thanks to the reviewers and non-reviewing readers who are sticking by anyways. The problem is, I have the entire plot set up in my head, I just need to build up to it for you guys. I hope you are enjoying, but if you aren't let me know what you think I should do differently. I'm opened to suggestions.  
  
-Thena  
  
"One day his son would go to America, a land of vengeance, mercy, and magnificant possibility." Sebastian read, closing the copy of Omerta he had been reading. Rory had been lying on her stomach, face propped up with her hands, but as he read those last words, she rolled over onto her back, a smile breaking over her face.  
  
"That was awesome," she said, "I'm so glad I picked that." She lay like that for a moment more and then sat up and faced Sebastian. "What did you think?" she asked Sebastian, tilting her head.  
  
"I liked it a lot," he said, smiling, his gray eyes shining. "Not as much as Rand though, of course," he added.  
  
"Of course," Rory responded, laughing. That had become a running joke between the two since their first encounter that day two months ago.  
  
"What are you thinking of the book club book?"  
  
"True Believer?" Rory asked, making a little face, "Eh. It's OK I guess. Not a great choice if you ask me. It's a good thing we have this, because book club definitely isn't all it was cracked up to be."  
  
Sebastian and Rory had developed a sort of game. One of them would choose a book, and the other would read it to them. Then they switched. They always played in that place in the fiction stacks where they had first met.  
  
Sebastian laughed again. He was always laughing, Rory barely noticed anymore when he did, even if he did have perfect teeth. She had noticed that from the beginning.  
  
"Your turn to choose," she said to him, shelving Omerta where they had found it and then looking to him for the next book they would read.  
  
Sebastian scanned the shelves for a moment and then he reached over to the shelf of books that had yet to be returned and shelved to their proper places.  
  
"How about this one?" he asked, looking at the cover, "It's funny: it's one of those books you're always supposed to read, and here I am, read almost everything in sight, and I've never read this."  
  
He looked at the cover and read the title once more, almost as if to reassure himself that this was indeed the book he meant to take. He passed it to Rory and she looked at the title. A Farewell to Arms. It was the same version that was sitting on her shelf in her room. The same version she had been trying to avoid. Her mouth went dry and she lost her voice somewhere between her heart and her stomach.  
  
"I. . . I. . . you know I don't like Hemingway Sebastian."  
  
"Yeah, I know, but come on! Give him a chance. . ."  
  
Every word Sebastian said struck a painful chord in Rory's mind. "I have. . . I really don't like him."  
  
"Please Ror? I really want to read this one. I'll read anything next time, I promise. Even those Gossip Girls books if you want."  
  
Jess had always made fun of girls who read Gossip Girls. They had made fun of them together. She looked over at Sebastian, who was smiling at her. He had a perfect smile. Jess' was crooked. It was even more perfect in that regard that Sebastian's symmetrical one. Jess' smile had been mysterious.  
  
"Sebastian. . ." Rory said, a tremor and a tear in her voice, "Could you please pick another book?" She looked at her hands, holding the book he had handed her. They were shaking so hard that she couldn't read the title, especially not through the wells of tears that were coming to her eyes.  
  
A look of concern spread across Sebastian's face. He didn't know what was wrong, but he put his arm around Rory's shoulder and pulled her down to lie on his lap. He stroked her hair let her cry into his coat. He reached to take the book from her, hoping that maybe taking it away would make her stop crying. "Yeah Ror. No problem. How about Vanity Fair? Will you read me Vanity Fair, Rory?" He pulled at the book that she was holding in her hands, but he couldn't take it from her grip. She was shaking so hard that he couldn't tell if she was nodding or not in response to his question. 


	9. Craving Contact

Augh! I'm awful, I'm awful, I know. If I were you I would hate me. I hate when authors abandon their stories for such a long time. I'm going to try to update at least once a week now. I know where I want to go with this now, so I have at least five chapters I can just pound out and post. So because this took so long I'm trying to make it an extra long chapter but no promises! We'll just see where it goes. . .  
  
-----  
  
Jess ran his finger along the binding of "Atlas Shrugged". He opened it and then closed it again without even looking at the words. He opened it to the front page. The blank one. "Kevin Grant" was written in perfect handwriting in black ink. The ink wasn't from a ballpoint pen, and the handwriting looked perfect not from effort but from instinct. Sheer practice of writing this name over and over again. Jess suspected that the copy he now held had belonged to an army man. He wasn't exactly sure why, but whenever he sat in this tree he would think about who Kevin Grant was, avoiding actually opening the book to a page with more than these two words written on it.  
  
"Jess!"  
  
Jess looked down to the ground from the branch where he was sitting to see Jenna standing on the lawn. She was wearing denim cutoffs, a No Doubt t- shirt, and black sunglasses perched on top of her head.  
  
"Get down here!"  
  
Jess waited a beat before obliging: he wasn't going to get anywhere in "Atlas Shrugged" today. He reached above him to grip a branch with one hand and swung himself down in one fluid movement. He landed flat on both feet like a cat.  
  
"We're going clubbing!" Jenna said.  
  
"What?" Jess asked, whining a bit.  
  
"Clubbing! Look!" She reached into her pocket and whipped out a driver's licence.  
  
"You can drive. . . big deal. . . so can I. . ."  
  
"No, silly. Look!" Jess didn't take to being called silly, but instead of complaining about it he simply obliged and looked closer at the card that Jenna was holding up. The first thing he noticed was the name, Alison Daniels. Then he looked to the picture. The coloring was the same, but now that he looked, it was definitely not a picture of Jenna. He raised an eyebrow at her.  
  
"It's my cousin's."  
  
"I see."  
  
"So we're going out drinking!"  
  
"You and your cousin?"  
  
"No, silly. You and me!"  
  
"I don't think so."  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"I don't drink."  
  
"Uh huh, sure you don't. What's with the badass look, then. Huh?"  
  
Jess just shrugged.  
  
"Come on, please?" Jess looked at Jenna. Her eyes were pleading. Jess thought for a moment. Jenna was his only friend in California. Not that he had ever depended on people. It was too risky. First Jimmy, or not even him, just the hope that he would maybe come back. He was a little late with that, and it wasn't as if they had a relationship now. Liz, God knows depending on her had been a lost cause. By the time he got to Luke, he was already too guarded to let anyone in. And then there was Rory. His reflexes demanded that he stop thinking about her, but he couldn't. Rory. He had let her in, and she had let him in too. And then he had let her down. No, it was too hard to disappoint people. He didn't even really care anymore what people thought of him.  
  
But Jenna. . . she was so easy to please. It was a nice feeling, to make someone else happy, even if he knew that he had barely done anything at all. He liked it when he made people happy instead of disappointed all the time.  
  
"What time?" he sighed. Jenna grinned happily.  
  
"Ten?"  
  
Jess went back to Jimmy's and went up to his room. He buried "Atlas" in one of his drawers. He grabbed a book off his shelf and buried himself in the story. He had thought too much about Rory for one day.  
  
He wondered if he was being melodramatic. She had been his high school girlfriend. Had he really thought that they would be together forever? This day had been imminent, hadn't it? He wasn't so sure. . . Rory had been different from any other girl he had ever known. He had loved her, and she had loved him, as she had said in that quivering voice over the phone the day of her graduation. He supposed that somewhere in the back of his mind he had hoped that he and Rory could just go on being together forever.  
  
That was all in the past now though. He felt like he couldn't get out of this funk he was in. It was over. He would never be with Rory. He had to move on, he knew it. He just. . . wasn't quite sure how to go about it was all. He had though that this whole becoming good for her idea had been smart, but maybe it just forced him to think about her more. Maybe the best idea would be to pretend he had never met her. To go back to his New York self. Not caring about anyone or anything. Pretending that all those things she had unconsciously taught him about friendship and about loving another person had never been taught. Starting tonight, with this clubbing idea with Jenna. He grabbed some jeans and a black t-shirt and dressed. He gelled his hair and then looked at his reflection. He saw his old self, and he wasn't happy.  
  
At ten he drove by to pick up Jenna as he had promised. She got into the car and chatted mindlessly. He grunted periodically to make sure she knew that he was still alive.  
  
The pair got in without any trouble. The bouncer didn't even ask Jess for I.D., no one ever had, and Jenna's cousin's I.D. got her in without a snag. Jess pulled Jenna over to the bar and ordered a beer.  
  
"What do you want?" he asked Jenna.  
  
"I want to dance!" she said.  
  
"OK, go ahead."  
  
"No! Come with me!"  
  
"I don't dance."  
  
"You could if you wanted to."  
  
"Who says I want to?" The comment slid out of his mouth like oil, and then he regretted it immediately. It was something the old Jess would have said. 'But you are the old Jess,' he reminded himself. He watched as Jenna shrugged and then waltzed onto the dance floor to find someone else to dance with. He turned back to the bar and downed his first beer. He took in one beer after another, interspersing them with harder drinks until he felt so groggy he could barely tell where his feet were.  
  
He got off the bar stool extremely ungracefully and looked out onto the dance floor. He saw Jenna dancing, her hands up in the air and her blond hair was whipping around her face. He walked up behind her and grabbed her waist, pressing his hips up against her butt and softly grinding against her. Jenna barely acknowledged that she was no longer dancing with herself. They danced until the song was over, and then Jenna turned her head up towards Jess'.  
  
"You want to get out of here?" It wasn't the tone that Jess was used to. Usually by now the girl he was with was speaking with sex dripping from her words. He could tell just by looking at her that she wanted him and that was what made going slow so much more enjoyable. But Jenna was different. She didn't show any sign of wanting to jump into bed with him as soon as they left. No matter. Jess was sure that she would. And that was what he wanted. All he could think of was how much he craved contact with someone. Anyone. It didn't matter who.  
  
"OK," Jess said, whispering huskily into Jenna's ear. Jenna spun out away from him and grabbed his hand, leading him out of the bar. He watched her back. She was wearing a light blue halter and he could see the outline of her breasts from behind, peeking out from the sides of the shirt, a mere suggestion of what lay beneath.  
  
Jess hailed a cab and the two clamored in. "You gonna hang with me or do you want to go home?" Jenna asked.  
  
'Smooth,' Jess thought,. "I'll come back with you," he said, just as casually as Jenna had spoken.  
  
Jenna gave her address. They rode in silence. Jess was waiting to feel Jenna squirm as the others had when he wasn't all over them in the cab. It was the way he played the game. The cab ride was when he let them sweat.  
  
They arrived at Jenna's house and Jess pulled a five out of his pocket and handed it to the driver. He followed Jenna out of the cab and into her house. Jenna unlocked the front door. "No one's home," she said.  
  
'Convenient,' Jess thought to himself.  
  
Jenna led Jess into the living room and told him to sit on the couch. He did so, and she disappeared. She returned a few moments later with a liter bottle of Coke and a family size bag of Lays. She reached for the remote and flipped on the T.V., turning it to late night game shows, and then she reached into the bag for a large handful of chips.  
  
Maybe it was the grogginess and the fact that he could barely distinguish one object from another, but Jess was getting the feeling that this wasn't the way things usually went precoitus. He looked at Jenna as she munched on chips and washed them down with Cola.  
  
"Thanks for leaving with me. I was just getting so tired of the same losers coming up behind me and feeling me up." She took another swig of Coke. "I don't mean you, of course. I like you."  
  
Something was definitely wrong. Jenna was still clothed. She was eating. And she hadn't once touched him. Jess shifted uncomfortably. This was not the way he remembered situations like this. Were all those drinks messing with his memory?  
  
"We're good together," Jenna continued, "We're going to be good friends, I can tell."  
  
That was the moment where Jess realized that it wasn't just his memory. "Friends?" he asked.  
  
"Yeah. What, you don't want to be my friend?" Jenna asked.  
  
"No, I do, but. . ." Jess' words were getting jumbled. He couldn't remember what he usually said to get a girl in bed. Had it been so long since he had done this that his instincts were gone? He tried to clear his head. The lights in the room were piercing his temples and the man on the television sounded like he was screaming. Jess closed his eyes for a moment and then opened them, looking over to Jenna.  
  
'She did that thing where you stretch and then you put your arm around the other person and then you sneeze and your hand falls.' Where was this coming from? Oh yeah, he had said it to Luke. He looked over to Jenna. It was worth a try. Jess yawned and stretched his arm, letting it fall loosely around Jenna's shoulders. Jenna's eyes didn't move from the television, but she said, "Are you tired?"  
  
"Naw. . ." Jess said. He sat like that for a moment before moving into phase two. He faked a sneezed and allowed his hand to fall, his fingertips grazing Jenna's breast through her top. She looked down at his hand, and he shifted his gaze to the television. He could feel her eyes shift from his hand to his face. He didn't look at her.  
  
"What are you doing?" she asked.  
  
What was he doing? "I. . ."  
  
"Oh. Oh Jess." Jenna looked embarassed and amused at the same time. "I thought someone must have told you, or you must have figured it out by now. . . Oh Jess. . ." she giggled a bit. Jess uncomfortably moved his hand. His head was killing him. He was sure this wasn't how this was supposed to happen.  
  
"What?" he asked, gruff and annoyed.  
  
"I'm gay, Jess. I thought you knew. Everyone knows."  
  
"You're. . . you're what?"  
  
"I'm gay," she said, slower this time, annunciating the syllables.  
  
"But you. . . why. . . us. . ."  
  
"Look, um," Jenna said, more uncomfortable this time. "Why don't you stay over? You can sleep here and then tomorrow when you're more. . . coherent we can talk." Jenna stood up. Jess was ready to protest, but then he realized that all he really wanted was to sleep this off. He lay down across the couch and grunted an "mmkay" at Jenna. She shook her head and smiled at him and then disappeared into her room.  
  
When Jess woke up the next morning, all he could feel was the insane headache. He felt the light boring into his eyes before he even opened them. And that dream. That weird, weird dream about Jenna being gay and him sleeping at her house. . .  
  
He opened his eyes and looked around the room. This wasn't his room. It was Jenna's living room. He remembered it from his dream. Which, he was beginning to realize, hadn't been a dream at all. He sat up and was suddenly blinded by his headache. As his vision began to return, he looked around the room and saw Jenna coming out of the kitchen with one of her hands cupped and the other holding a glass of water.  
  
"Here," she said, handing him the glass. She tipped her other hand into his and he saw that she had been carrying Advil. He swallowed them and then swung his legs down so that he was sitting upright on the couch.  
  
"You want to talk?" she asked.  
  
"About. . ."  
  
"About how you're clueless?" she said, laughing. Jess looked away, embarassed.  
  
"Oh, don't worry, I'm only teasing. Everyone else already knew, and I know I don't come off as gay."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Don't worry, I wasn't using you," she said. Then she thought for a moment. "Well, I guess in a way I kind of was. I suppose I could have told you, but I figured you wouldn't be as interested in getting to know me. And you interested me. And now we're friends, so it's OK, right?"  
  
Jess looked at her. She was still an attractive girl, but he didn't understand what had driven him to act the way he had the night before. Alchohol. Now he remembered one of the reasons he had given it up. The other one slowly began to come back as well.  
  
"Yeah, it's OK."  
  
"Good. Now, I must ask another question."  
  
"Sure," Jess said.  
  
"Who is Rory?" The thought he had been trying to push out of his head suddenly came streaming back.  
  
"How. . . how do you know about Rory?"  
  
"Well, that was all you said in your sleep last night. You just kept calling Rory and saying, 'I'm sorry.'" 


	10. A Genuine Smile

Rory had kind of been avoiding Sebastian since her freak-out in the library a week ago. Of course, avoiding him meant avoiding the stacks and the book club, giving her much more time to think about Jess. God how she missed him. She missed him so much it hurt.  
  
It wasn't fair! Why did he always get to leave? Why did he always get to be the one doing the hurting? Not that she really wanted to hurt Jess. . . that was the last thing she wanted. She just wanted her hurt to go away. And she knew one way to make it happen.  
  
Calling Jess had crossed her mind, but then she realized that she didn't even have his phone number. She supposed she could have gotten it from Luke, but she didn't want to seem desparate. No, she knew one other way to make herself feel better. She had to stop avoiding Sebastian. But she knew that by calling him, she would force herself into a situation in which she would be required to tell him why she had been so upset. She was going to have to talk about Jess, and this was going to be the first time she had spoken about him since he left.  
  
She slid off her bed and picked up the gray phone the school had given her. She dialed Sebastian's four digit extension and waited for him to pick up. Rang once. Twice. Three times. And then she reached voicemail. "Hey, it's Sebastian. Either I'm screening my calls, unplugged my phone, or I'm not here. Leave a message." Beep.  
  
"Hey, Sebastian. It's me. Me being me, Rory. Hey. So, um, I haven't seen you in a while, and I was wondering if you wanted to get together. Maybe grab some coffee this afternoon around two. Lemme know. Extension 7443. Bye."  
  
She hung up the phone. She had never been very good at leaving phone messages, and this one was no exception. Her voice sounded jerky and fake. Oh well, at least she had done it. She had called him and she would explain what happened and she would have her friend back. In the nearly two months she had been at Yale, Sebastian was easily her closest friend, and without him she suddenly felt as if she had no friends. She couldn't count the number of times she had almost gotten in her car and gone home or almost begged Lorelai to come up and visit her during one of the phone calls they shared throughout the day. But she hadn't wanted to seem like a baby, so she had sucked it up. Having Sebastian back would make it a lot better.  
  
She walked over to her bookshelf to look for a book to read when her phone rang.  
  
"Hello?"  
  
"Rory? It's Sebastian."  
  
"Oh. Hey."  
  
"I got your message. I was just in the shower. Still up for coffee?"  
  
"As always," she responded.  
  
"Wanna go now?"  
  
"Now? Sure, why not?"  
  
"Great. I'll come by your dorm in like ten minutes."  
  
"Call up when you get here and I'll come down. The numbers are posted on the door."  
  
"OK, I'll be there soon."  
  
"K, bye."  
  
Rory hung up the phone. Well, he hadn't spoken any differently. Maybe he had forgiven her for her crying fit and then her avoiding him for a week. Or maybe he was just being nice.  
  
Rory slipped on her sneakers and grabbed a denim jacket from her closet. She got her wallet and counted ten dollars out of it, which she slipped into her pocket. The phone rang and she picked it up, "Hello?"  
  
"It's me."  
  
"I'll be right down." She hung up the phone and walked down the stairs.  
  
"Hey."  
  
"Hey."  
  
The two began walking in the direction of downtown New Haven, neither one of them starting the conversation.  
  
"So how are your classes?" Sebastian asked in an attempt to break the extremely awkward silence.  
  
"My classes? Oh, they're good. They're pretty good. How about you? How are your classes?"  
  
"My classes are good too."  
  
"That's good."  
  
"Yeah, it is."  
  
They walked in silence again until they reached the coffee shop in New Haven.  
  
"Hey Rory. Coffee?" Tim behind the counter asked her.  
  
"Yeah, thanks Tim. Black."  
  
"Of course."  
  
"I'll have the same," said Sebastian.  
  
"Will this be together or separate?" Tim asked.  
  
"Together," Sebastian interjected, sliding a five across the counter. "My treat," he added to Rory.  
  
"Thank you," she said.  
  
"No problem."  
  
Tim handed them their coffees and they found a table in the back of the small shop.  
  
"You know him?" Sebastian asked, refering to Tim.  
  
"Oh, yeah. I'm a frequent shopper."  
  
"You're an addict."  
  
"Hey! Look who's talking!" Rory said, pointing to Sebastian's cup.  
  
"This is my first today. What's that, your third?"  
  
"Fourth," Rory said, embarassed. "But it's not my fault! My mom raised me like this!"  
  
"Your mom sounds cool. It's cool that you guys are friends."  
  
"Yeah, she's awesome. Maybe you'll meet her next time she's up here."  
  
"Yeah, maybe."  
  
There was a short silence before Rory cleared her throat and began to speak. "Sebastian? I wanted to talk to you about what happened in the stacks."  
  
"Don't worry about it."  
  
"No, you deserve to know what happened. I mean, I know I freaked out, and I probably freaked you out too, and it was over Hemingway!"  
  
"Hey, some people don't like stuff. I freak out if people put parsley on my food."  
  
"No, no, that's not the point. It's just. . . this is kind of hard."  
  
"I told you you don't have to worry about it."  
  
"No, I want you to know. OK. Here goes. Um, back home I had this boyfriend. . ."  
  
"Of course. . . and what, he broke up with you that day or something?"  
  
"No, no, not exactly. Um. . . see, he was kind of like you and me in the way that he loved to read. And well, Hemingway was his favorite. Then, he, well, he had been living with his uncle Luke. Luke who runs Luke's diner? I think I mentioned him. . ."  
  
"Yeah, you did."  
  
"Yeah, well, anyways, he went to California to live with his dad and he kind of left without saying goodbye to me. You see, we were kind of in a fight. Anyways, Luke found a copy of that book in Jess' room after he left and he gave it to me. And now it just kind of makes me miss him. . . "  
  
"Jess is your boyfriend."  
  
"Yeah. Or was now, I guess. I'm not really sure. I guess we're broken up. We never really said anything about it. So I'm sorry about my freak out. Even I wouldn't have guessed that that book would have affected me so much." Rory looked down at her hands.  
  
"Don't worry about it. Everyone's had a hard breakup. It takes time for things to be right again."  
  
"I guess. . ."  
  
"We won't read any more Hemingway, I promise. I spit in his general direction."  
  
"Thanks," Rory tried to muster up a smile, but it only came up as half. Luckily, Sebastian didn't notice. He just got up to ger some cream for his coffee.  
  
"Cheater!"  
  
"Hey, not everyone has as strong a stomach for this stuff as you do." Sebastian smiled, and Rory smiled back, but this time her smile was genuine. 


	11. Can't Fall Out of Love

"Good. Now, I must ask another question."  
  
"Sure," Jess said.  
  
"Who is Rory?" The thought he had been trying to push out of his head suddenly came streaming back.  
  
"How. . . how do you know about Rory?"  
  
"Well, that was all you said in your sleep last night. You just kept calling Rory and saying, 'I'm sorry.'"  
  
Jess' breath caught in his throat as he looked at Jenna. She was watching him, waiting for a response, obviously not noticing how much this hurt him to think about, to talk about. He had been avoiding thinking about Rory for so long that now hearing her name was like... he could use so many cliched metaphors. Like a long drink after a walk through the desert. Like a cool breeze in the middle of a hot day. But even that didn't describe the amazing feeling that coursed through his veins and floated over him as he heard her name. Rory. And when he'd said it, like chocolate in his mouth.  
  
He wanted to tell Jenna this. He wanted to explain to her the extacy he felt now that he was letting himself remember her. The curves of her face, the color of her hair, of her eyes. Deprivation of her had finally taken its toll, and he craved Rory more than he ever had when they were together.  
  
"No one," Jess said. He couldn't share this, could he? He never shared his feelings. It was a rule he lived by. Slowly, he felt the amazing feeling slip away, his severe hangover taking its place.  
  
"I don't believe you. You don't have to tell me who she is, but I don't believe that she's no one."  
  
"That's your right, I guess." What was he doing? The same thing he had always done, covering his real feelings with succinct sentences. Hiding. Always hiding behind sarcasm and his James Dean image.  
  
"She was my girlfriend. Back home."  
  
"In New York?"  
  
Jess stalled for a moment. "No. In Connecticut."  
  
"But you said... I thought you were from New York."  
  
"I am. I've been living with my uncle in Connecticut for a while. My mom kicked me out."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"I did stupid shit."  
  
"So then, why are you here?"  
  
Jess could feel that this was going to be a conversation full of questions. He was about to tell the entire story. Was he ready for that? Maybe... maybe not. But laying everything on the table would help him see it from the outside, and Jenna wasn't going to judge, he could tell.  
  
"He kicked me out."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"I failed my senior year and I wouldn't go back to Stars Hollow High and do it over."  
  
"You? You failed out? I don't believe you."  
  
"I just didn't care at all. I never went to school."  
  
"So this is your second senior year? No wonder you have no senior pride."  
  
"Yeah... I guess. I didn't have any senior pride at Stars Hollow either though."  
  
"Stars Hollow? Is that where you lived?"  
  
'Yeah, Stars Hollow, Connecticut."  
  
"And that's where Rory lives."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"So what happened with you two?"  
  
"I screwed up."  
  
"Mr. Vague."  
  
"She's not like me. She's... she's... a nice girl. You know? First kiss at 16, I was only her second boyfriend, she was still a virgin..."  
  
"Was? Jesus, Jess, you did screw up..."  
  
"No, is. Is. She still is. She stopped me. I just wish I'd stopped myself is all."  
  
"So then what happened? She dump you?"  
  
"No. I... I left. I told Luke-"  
  
"Your uncle?"  
  
"Yeah. I told Luke I wasn't staying for another senior year and I got on a bus and came out here."  
  
"So you dumped her?"  
  
"No... no one dumped anyone. I didn't tell her I was leaving, and so when I left... we were still together I guess."  
  
"So why aren't you together now?"  
  
"I tried to call her... right after I got here... to apologize... but I just couldn't say anything. So she figured out it was me and went off on this rant. She... she told me..." she loved him. She had told him she loved him. But he couldn't tell Jenna that. "She told me that she was done with me. And that's that I guess."  
  
"But you still love her."  
  
Jess didn't say anything.  
  
"You don't have to say so. I can tell. So why don't you just... I don't know, show up on her doorstep or something else. Be romantic. She'll take you back."  
  
"I don't deserve her."  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"I... I keep trying to be better. I want to be good for her. But... I'll never be good enough. It wasn't meant to be."  
  
"I disagree."  
  
"Yeah, well what do you know? She was perfect. And I screwed it up. I deserve this. I deserve to be miserable."  
  
"Jess."  
  
"No. I don't even know why I told you all this. It's in the past. It's over. It's done." Jess grabbed his jacket and stormed out, slamming the door behind him. He walked quickly down the streets until he reached the beach.  
  
He would cry right now if he hadn't given up crying when he was twelve. He didn't know where all the emotions were coming from. There were just too many to tell. Telling Jenna. Thinking about Rory. FInally vocalizing his fears of never deserving Rory...  
  
"Jess..."  
  
"Well, someone can't take a hint."  
  
"Jess, I think... I think that you've changed since you got here. You're not as dark. Not as... breakfast club, you know?" She sat down on the sand next to him and rested her hand on his forearm. "Look, I understand that this is hard. I mean, I don't know how you feel, because frankly, I've never been in love. But... you have. You are. You're not going to fall out of love with her. It doesn't work that way. If you can fall out of love, it wasn't love to begin with." She gave him a half smile and then rose to leave. Jess watched the ocean. He hoped she was wrong about never falling out of love with Rory, because he didn't think he could take it to feel this shitty for the rest of his life. 


	12. Home for Christmas

Rory had posted a calendar in her room counting down the days to Christmas. She had finally finished her last final, and she was packing to go home. Four weeks. She was so happy to finally be in college, with its super-long vacations. She would be home for four long weeks. She was playing The Clash on her stereo as she packed. Lexie had left that morning, and Rory was going to leave as soon as she had everything packed.  
  
Suddenly, the ringing of her phone interrupted the packing process. She turned down her music and walked over to the phone.  
  
"Hello?"  
  
"Rory?"  
  
"Sebastian? Hey. . . I thought you had already gone back to Seattle?"  
  
"My plane got grounded."  
  
"Oh no! Why?"  
  
"Have you looked out the window recently?" Sebastian asked, a smile in his voice.  
  
"No, why?" Rory looked out the window. "Oh my God! It's snowing! It's snowing, it's snowing!"  
  
"Yeah, and it's supposed to be like this all weekend. I can't leave until Monday."  
  
"Oh. That sucks."  
  
"I know. I'm gonna be in my dorm all by myself."  
  
"You want to come back to Stars Hollow with me for the weekend? You can stay with us until you can fly out."  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"Yeah, I'm sure it's no problem. My mom loves having guests."  
  
"You're sure I'm not intruding? What if your mom didn't make enough dinner?"  
  
"Lorelai? Cook? Don't make me laugh. Luke does all the cooking. Or Pete. Or Al."  
  
"I'm not even going to ask."  
  
"Why don't you pack your stuff and meet me here in an hour? Is that enough time?"  
  
"Plenty."  
  
"Great. See you then." Rory hung the phone up and then picked it back up to call home.  
  
"Who's there and what do you want?"  
  
"Mom?"  
  
"Baby! Do you see the snow?"  
  
"I do indeed."  
  
"Isn't it pretty? So why are you calling me when you're supposed to be on your way here? Oh no! Can you not get home because of the snow?"  
  
"No, I'm OK. They've pretty much cleared the roads. I'll just drive carefully. The problem is, my friend Sebastian, you remember I was telling you about him?"  
  
"Yeah, what about him?"  
  
"His plane is grounded, and I told him he could stay with us."  
  
"Sure. No problem."  
  
"Awesome. It was so funny. He asked me if you had cooked enough for him."  
  
Both girls laughed. "All right, baby. I'll see if I can cook enough for your friend for dinner."  
  
"Mom. . . don't go near the kitchen."  
  
"OK, I'll tell Luke to cook enough for your friend."  
  
"Luke's tonight?"  
  
"Yeah, unless you wanted something else?"  
  
"No, that's fine. Why don't we just meet you there? I'll call you when I'm ten minutes away."  
  
"See you then, baby."  
  
"OK, bye Mom."  
  
"Bye." Rory hung up and threw her phone onto her bed. She turned the Clash back up and resumed her packing.  
  
An hour later, she was downstairs waiting for Sebastian with her bags. She saw him walk up, covered in snow, and went out to meet him in the parking lot. They got into Rory's car.  
  
"You're sure this is OK?" Sebastian asked.  
  
"Sure, why wouldn't it be?"  
  
"You do have enough room for me, right?"  
  
"Yeah, Mom just got a pull-out couch in the living room. It's all fine."  
  
"Good."  
  
"How was your last final?" Rory asked.  
  
"It was fine. They were all OK I think. Harder than high school, of course, but they were fine. How were yours?"  
  
"Same. My British Lit. final was a little hard, but that's a great class."  
  
"Yeah? I took American Lit. this term."  
  
"I was thinking about taking that, but I wasn't sure about the teacher."  
  
"O'Connell's OK once you get used to him. He takes a while to warm up to you, but after that, he's great."  
  
They continued talking until they reached the outskirts of Stars Hollow. Rory dialed her mom. "Hello?"  
  
"Hey Mom. We just saw Taylor's pride and joy."  
  
"The town sign? Great, I'll meet you at Luke's in ten."  
  
"See you then."  
  
"Bye sweetie."  
  
Rory hung up and continued driving until they reached Luke's. She pulled into a spot in the front and got out.  
  
"William's Hardware?" Sebastian asked.  
  
"Long story. Don't ask. This is Luke's."  
  
"Diner?"  
  
"Yup." She pushed the door to the diner and a small bell rang. Sebastian watched as a man standing behind the counter in a baseball cap and flannel shirt looked up. "Rory!"  
  
"Hey Luke!"  
  
"We missed you here. You don't visit enough." He came out from behind the counter and the two shared an awkward hug.  
  
"Well I'm here now. For a month!"  
  
"That's great!"  
  
By now, there was a large crowd around Rory. Rory didn't have a huge amount of friends at school, she was rather shy, so Sebastian was surprised when a large woman with dyed red hair who Rory addressed as Miss Patty, a blonde woman and her extremely tall husband who Rory called Babette and Morey, a slight Korean girl in glasses, Lane, and a man who Rory called Kirk all swarmed her when she had entered. They all talked at once, but instead of looking shy and surprised as she usually did around crowds, Rory just looked extremely happy.  
  
"Lane! Oh my God, I've missed you! How long are you back for?"  
  
"Three weeks, almost the same as you!"  
  
"And how many of those do you have to be in Church?"  
  
"Plan to be or am supposed to be?"  
  
Rory just laughed and hugged her.  
  
"Hey sugar!" the blonde woman said.  
  
"Babette! How are you?" Rory reached out to give her a hug.  
  
"Morey."  
  
"Rory."  
  
"Don't be offended, sugar. Morey decided that hugging ruins his street cred. Now he just does a secret handshake."  
  
Rory reached out for the man's hand and followed his lead as they went through an extremely complicated handshake.  
  
"Kirk," Rory said in greeting. "How's CatKirk?"  
  
"Oh, he's fine. We built him his own wing of the house last month. I just slide his food through a door and then lock it."  
  
"Interesting. . ."  
  
"Hey doll!"  
  
"Miss Patty! How are you?"  
  
"I'm fine, I'm fine doll. . . although I'd be much happier if you'd introduce me to your gentleman friend." Miss Patty looked over to Sebastian.  
  
"Oh! Sebastian, I'm so sorry. I'm being rude."  
  
"Don't worry about it."  
  
"Everyone, this is Sebastian. Sebastian, this is Luke, Babette, Morey, Kirk, Lane, and Miss Patty."  
  
"Oh, nice to meet you all."  
  
"Where would you like to sit, Rory?" Luke asked.  
  
"Oh, We'll sit at the counter."  
  
"Are you expecting Lor-" The bell above the door suddenly rang.  
  
"Where's my baby?" Rory and Sebastian turned around to see a woman who looked remarkably like Rory.  
  
"Mom!"  
  
"Mom?" Sebastian said, quietly to himself.  
  
Rory jumped out of her seat and ran to greet Lorelai. The two hugged and screamed and jumped up and down.  
  
"It's been too long since I've seen you! I'm having Rory withdrawal!"  
  
"You came up to visit me last week."  
  
"So? That's way too long." They walked to the counter, arm in arm and sat down, Rory between Sebastian and Lorelai.  
  
"Is this your friend?" Lorelai asked.  
  
"Yes, Mom, this is Sebastian."  
  
"Hey Sebastian, I'm Lorelai, but you can call me Your Highness."  
  
"She's joking," Rory said.  
  
"I figured," Sebastian said. "It's nice to meet you."  
  
"Luke?" Lorelai called. "I've been here for ten seconds, and I still don't have coffee." Lorelai picked up the large mug in front of her and shoved it towards Luke. He rolled his eyes and filled it for her. She pulled it back towards her and drank, draining the entire mug. Sebastian sipped his mug and found that the coffee was extremely hot and strong.  
  
He looked to Rory, who had done the exact same thing as her mother. "How is that possible?" he asked.  
  
"What?" Rory and Lorelai asked, simultaneously.  
  
"How can you drain those mugs so fast? It's insanely hot."  
  
Rory and Lorelai just shrugged and demanded burgers of Luke. Luke looked to Sebastian. "I've known them for years, and I still haven't figured it out." He gave Sebastian one of his few smiles. "What can I get for you?"  
  
"Uh, I'll have what they're having."  
  
"Sure thing." Luke wrote the order out and passed it back to the kitchen. Lorelai and Rory were talking to each other a mile a minute, but Sebastian didn't mind. When they finished their meals, they all stood.  
  
"So Mom, how about Sebastian and I take my car back and we'll meet you back at the house?"  
  
"Sounds good." Rory got her coat. Sebastian pulled out his wallet.  
  
"Oh, no. Don't be silly!" Lorelai said.  
  
"Please let me help out. It's the least I can do in return for your hospitality."  
  
Rory and Lorelai laughed. "What?" Sebastian asked.  
  
"We aren't paying," Rory said. "Night Luke!"  
  
"Night!" Rory and Sebastian walked out of the diner to Rory's car.  
  
"Looks like she's finally gotten over Jess," Lorelai said to Luke. He nodded in agreement. Neither one had noticed the constant sadness behind Rory's eyes. She had gotten too good at hiding it for anyone to know it was there except for her. 


	13. And So This Is Christmas

Jess heard the Frank Sinatra Christmas soundtrack playing downstairs for what seemed like the thousandth time that week. He got up and shut his door, then walked over to his stereo to turn up the Metallica that was playing before he sat back down on his bed to organize his CDs.  
  
This was his first warm Christmas, and he was trying not to think about Christmas at all. Surprisingly, it wasn't that hard. He had bought gifts for Lily, Sasha, Jimmy, and Jenna a week ago and they were in the bottom of his closet. He had almost bought gifts for Rory on numerous occasions, so he was glad that his shopping was all done now. He hadn't taken Jenna's advice in being romantic and calling Rory or showing up at her door. He just kept hoping that she was wrong and that this crappy feeling would eventually fade. As much as he hated to admit it, he doubted it: in the four months he had been living with Jimmy, the feeling had only increased.  
  
He had thought about getting another girlfriend: he knew from Jenna that it would definitely be a simple task, she had told him that he was the talk of the girls' bathroom. However, distracting himself from Rory with another girl hadn't worked before and he doubted it would work this time. Besides, he didn't crave physical contact. He craved contact with Rory. It wasn't worth it with anyone else. Instead, he had decided that he would try to be good again, try to be like Rory again. Try, as much as he hated to admit it, to be a little bit more like Dean again.  
  
He now realized why people didn't drink at all. He was going to be good, he knew, for Rory, but he tried to convince himself that it was actually for himself. He wanted to work at a newspaper, he had decided, probably the New York Times. It seemed like a big enough goal. He didn't want to be a journalist, he wanted to be an editor. A boss. He had never been a people person, but it seemed like a job he could do: proofreading, choosing what worked and what didn't when it came to writing. Hell, if he got good enough, he could eventually hire someone to do the people-personning for him. Until then, he could just BS his way through it.  
  
He knew that in order to complete his goal, he would have to major in journalism at a big name school, so he was working harder than ever in his classes to try to make up for his so-so school record. His grades at Stars Hollow had been bad, but in the two years before, at PS 186, his grades had been fine, good even. He hadn't yet come up with the fabulous idea of cutting school, and so the grades came easily. He knew it was too late to apply now, so he had decided to do well this year at Venice Beach and then do some cool internship-type thing the next year and apply that year. That meant he would graduate college two years after Rory graduated from Yale.  
  
He was currently sucking up for reccommendations from his current teachers. His English teacher liked him a lot because he knew about literature and had read more than the latest Surfer's Monthly or Vogue like the rest of his classmates, and his Spanish teacher liked him because they were both from New York, so he was applying his efforts in brownnosing in those classes. He amused himself sometimes with how fake he thought he sounded, but apparently the teachers didn't pick it up: his fall term report card had been glowing.  
  
He'd had half a mind to ship a copy back to Luke to say "See? I'm not such a washed-up loser," but in leaving he had lost contact with everyone from Stars Hollow, just as he had lost contact with everyone from New York when he had left. Not that there had been anyone worth keeping in touch with in New York. He wasn't always as sure about the people in Stars Hollow, but he tried not to think about it.  
  
He sometimes wished he kept in contact with Luke. He found that this whole thing he had going here, with the goals and the good grades was like a drug detox. He was finally realizing how stupid he had acted, and he often wished he could apologize to Luke for all the shit he put him through, but it was in the past now. Jess wasn't ever going to revisit the past, especially not that past. No way could he risk running into Rory again. Not after all the shit he had put her through. And also because he was sure that the moment he saw her he would. . .  
  
He hadn't gotten that far in his fantasy of going back to Stars Hollow, but the rest of it was well developped. He would drive up in a hot little Italian sportscar in his fancy, expensive Italian clothes and Italian sunglasses. He would park it in front of the diner, double park it if he could find another car, like a gangster. He would waltz into the diner and sit at the counter. When Luke came out from the back, he wouldn't recognize him. Then, after a while of all the townspeople staring at him as though he was a newcomer, he knew that look well, he would reveal his identity to Luke. Luke would drag him upstairs, as he had so many times before, and he would give Jess one of his long-winded speeches. Then Jess, having genuinely listened to the entire thing, would whip off his sunglasses and apologize, genuinely. For everything.  
  
The two men would go back downstairs, and Rory would come in. Jess would look at her, she would look at him, and he would. . .  
  
What? Ravish her? In the middle of the diner? It was a possibility. . . although he would prefer if it wasn't in the diner.  
  
OK, so say they met on the bridge instead. That was the great thing about fantasies: you could backstep. So, he would walk to the bridge, and she would be sitting there, and then. . .  
  
No, it still didn't seem right. What did he want? What did he want from her? He wanted her to forgive him. But somehow he knew that, even if she did decide to forgive him, it would never be enough. He would never feel satisfied with the fact that she had forgiven him, because he knew how shitty he had been to her.  
  
That was the reason it was a good idea for him to stay away. If he stayed away, then he could avoid this uncomfortable situation. He would go on living his life, and he would know that, somewhere, she was living her perfect life, better off without him. 


	14. Every Day

"This is a cute town," Sebastian said from the passenger seat of Rory's Prius.  
  
"Just out of a fairytale. Wacky citizens and all," Rory added, not looking away from the street.  
  
"Yeah, I noticed they're a bit. . ."  
  
"Excentric?" Rory supplied, smiling. "Yeah, but we love them. Besides, my mom and I aren't all that normal, so we fit in just right.  
  
"Your mom is. . . young looking. You look just like her."  
  
"Aww. . . thanks! That's one of the best compliments I've ever gotten. And you're right about the young-looking thing. She had me when she was sixteen. Didn't I tell you?"  
  
"No, no I don't think so."  
  
"Oh, well, anyways, she did." Rory turned into the driveway, followed closely by the Jeep. "We're here! Home sweet home." She turned the car off and Sebastian walked around the back to open the trunk. They each took bags and dragged them up to the front porch.  
  
"Mom! It's cold! The key!" Rory shouted, her fingers turning white from gripping the bags and from the cold.  
  
"Just a second. . ." Lorelai mumbled. She got out of the Jeep, purse in one hand, coffee in the other. She walked slowly, deliberately, up the the front porch. She fumbled in her purse for the key. She pulled out a stick of gum. "Ooh! Double Mint! Rory, sing the double mint commercial song!"  
  
"Open the door!"  
  
"I'm waiting for my song. . ."  
  
Rory gritted her teeth and then sang quickly and without effort, "Double your pleasure, double your fun, it's the statement in the great mint in double mint gum. Now open the door!"  
  
"Well, I'm going to have to say that it lacked something. Effort. Motivation. Could we try it again."  
  
"I have no motivation to sing it again, but I have moti vation to do something else that involves an axe and your unaware, sleeping body!" Rory cried.  
  
"Fine, fine, we'll try again later, when you aren't being so touchy." She put the key in the door, turned, and opened it.  
  
"Thank you!" Rory said, switching suddenly from menacing serial-killer voice to sweet princess voice. She and Sebastian walked in and put their bags down.  
  
"All right," Rory said, "the pull out couch is in there, there's a bathroom over there, there's the kitchen. . . and uh, yeah."  
  
Sebastian nodded, still speechless from the mother-daughter performance at the front door. Rory noticed.  
  
"Oh, you'll have to get used to stuff like that. It's like I told you in the car. My mom and I aren't exactly what you'd call normal." She picked up her bags and carried them into her room. Sebastian was growing more and more amused by this girl every day.  
  
Sebastian awoke the next morning to the simultaneous neighing of a horse and oinking of a pig. He sat up and looked as Rory walked from her bedroom and sat at the table, head propped up in her hands, staring off into space. Lorelai followed almost immediately, already completely dressed and trying to look perky but failing miserably.  
  
"Remind me why we're doing this again," Rory said, her face flat down on the table.  
  
"Because," Lorelai interrupted herself with a giant yawn. "Because. We have a schedule. And on the schedule, it says that we get up early and go to Luke's for breakfast."  
  
"Why early though?"  
  
"Have I taught you nothing?" Lorelai exhaled a huge sigh. "I. . . Because. . . When I've had some coffee, I'll remember, OK?"  
  
"Hmm. . ."  
  
"Go! Get dressed!"  
  
Rory shlumped off to her room. Lorelai called to Sebastian from the table. "If you want to come to breakfast, then you should get dressed!"  
  
Sebastian got out of the bed that had been unfolded from the couch the night before and quickly made it back up. He then rummaged through his duffel and pulled out a pair of baggy blue jeans and a shirt. He carried them to the bathroom and dressed quickly. He emerged and sat down on the couch to pull on a pair of socks. Rory and Lorelai came in like zombies from the kitchen, and he followed them out to the front door, where he had left his boots, coat, and hat. He pulled them on, and then they all walked out to the car.  
  
"Jeep's too small," Rory mumbled.  
  
"Yeah." Lorelai said.  
  
"Let's take my car."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Too tired to drive."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Too tired to walk." Before Lorelai could slip in another 'yeah', Rory asked Sebastian, "Will you drive?"  
  
"Sure," he said, as he climbed into the driver's seat, "Can I have the keys?"  
  
Rory handed them to him from the back seat, and he turned the ignition and then turned around in his seat to back out of the driveway.  
  
"Which way?"  
  
"Left," they called out simultaneously. They continued to call out directions from their half-asleep state until Sebastian reached the diner where they had eaten dinner the night before.  
  
When he pulled into a spot, the girls suddenly jumped out of the car and ran in the front door of the diner, seized by an extreme amount of energy. Sebastian raised his eyebrows in surprise, and then turned off the car and followed them in, with slightly less enthieusiasm. He was growing more amazed by this girl every day.  
  
Rory and Lorelai had found seats at the counter, and Sebastian joined them. Lorelai and Rory were already begging for coffee, and Luke was shouting back from the kitchen.  
  
When he came out, he was carrying three plates of pancakes. "Pancakes!" Lorelai and Rory shouted.  
  
"They're the chocolate chip kind that you like," Luke said.  
  
"Goody," Lorelai replied, reaching out for her plate. Luke set them down in front of Rory and Lorelai, and then walked over to Sebastian.  
  
"I wasn't sure if you wanted chocolate chip or not, so I made them with the rest of the batch. If you want them plain I can do that too, or have Caesar do it."  
  
"No!" Lorelai and Rory shouted in chorus, mouths full of pancakes. "Caesar's pancakes aren't safe," Lorelai supplied as a cryptic answer.  
  
"Chocolate chip are fine. Thank you," he said.  
  
The three of them finished their breakfasts, and then they all slowly walked over to the door of the diner. "I hate to tell you this, but I have to work today," Lorelai said.  
  
"No!"  
  
"I tried to get out of it, but Michel made a face. Now usually, I love it when I get to make Michel make a face, but he's been especially cranky since he gave up butter and full-fat oil, so I didn't want to make him quit on me."  
  
"All right," Rory said, "Sebastian and I will hang out here. We'll find something to do. Dinner here?"  
  
"Sure. I'll page you."  
  
"OK. Have fun at work!" Rory waved to her Mom, and then she and Sebastian walked towards the town square, leaving the car where it was. "So, what do you want to do today?" she asked.  
  
"Whatever you want to do."  
  
"Hmm. . . all right. . . ooh! How about a movie?"  
  
"Sure."  
  
Rory smiled and then reached for his hand, pulling him along. He was growing more and more enamored with this girl every day. 


	15. Masks

Jenna called in a whine.  
  
he said, not looking up from his books. He was studying at her kitchen table, and she had been hovering over him for a good ten minutes.  
  
Let's do something!  
  
  
  
Why not?  
  
  
  
I have finals too, but you don't see me killing myself over my books.  
  
Without looking up from his book, Jess replied. Yes, but that's because your senior spring has actually been a senior spring. You have gotten into school. He turned the page. You already know you're going to UCLA. You don't have to worry. He scribbled something down in his notebook. I do.  
  
You do not. You have straight A's and amazing reccs for when you apply next year. Even if you fail all of your finals, you'll still be fine.  
  
Jess sighed. My record for this year has to negate two years of absolute shit.  
  
But Jess...  
  
  
  
I'm bored... she whined.  
  
So study.  
  
I don't want to... she trailed off and walked over to the window. Come do something with me. Then I promise to be nice and let you study.  
  
Jess was silent.  
  
Come on. Ice cream. We can get ice cream.  
  
Jess didn't look up, but his pen stopped moving, suspended above the page.  
  
Yummy yummy ice cream...  
  
He couldn't breathe. All he could think of was that fateful night back in Stars Hollow. Ever since he had told Jenna about Rory, he had stopped trying to push thoughts of Stars Hollow away. It had become useless. But accepting them didn't help the pain he felt whenever he thought of that place. Of her.  
  
  
  
He grunted in response.  
  
What? What is it? Was it something I said?  
  
He tried to get back to studying, but lines and memories from that night and from nights before and after were echoing in his head, making it impossible for him to think of anything else.  
  
Jenna said quietly,   
  
What about her? His voice was lined with cotton.  
  
I said something that made you think of her. Jess, you really need to do something about this. She's running your life and she doesn't even know it.  
  
She isn't running my life, Jess said in a miserable attempt to defend himself.  
  
Oh yeah? The constant stone face the second anyone says anything that reminds you of her? The refusal to say her name? The celibacy? Or how about that book you carry with you everywhere that you never read?  
  
What book? Jess said under his breath, no expression, not wanting to hear the answer.  
  
Jenna knew what he didn't want to hear, so she said it anyway. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. It was her favorite, wasn't it?  
  
He slammed his book closed and put it in his backpack.  
  
  
  
Fine, let's do something.  
  
Jenna said, following him out, unable to keep up with his steps for at least a block. By the time she finally matched his steps, all signs of sadness were gone from his eyes, and he was back to cracking jokes.  
  
Jess liked masks.


	16. Apologies

"Luke!"  
  
"Hey Rory. Sebastian. Coffee for you guys?"  
  
"Do you even have to ask?" Rory asked, laughing. The two sat at the counter, and Luke filled the two mugs he had placed down in front of them. Rory inhaled her coffee. Sebastian drank his fast as well, faster than he had that first time this winter, but still nowhere near rivaling Lorelai and Rory.  
  
Suddenly, Rory raised her half-empty cup in the air, and Sebastian followed suit with a confused look on his face. "To us!" Rory said, "We finally did it!"  
  
Luke stopped in his tracks. He froze as he heard what Rory had said. Now, he knew that he had a reputation for being a bit clueless, but there was no way he could have ever seen this one coming. He and Lorelai had been talking about Rory and Sebastian for a while, wondering when they would get together, but Luke thought that they were still just friends.  
  
"Yeah, I know," Sebastian said, laughing, "Who would have guessed that we, lowly freshmen, could create our own club."  
  
"An Ayn Rand club no less!" Rory replied, laughing.  
  
Luke sighed. He had nothing to worry about, and nothing to tell Lorelai. He picked up the coffee pot and walked back over to the friends, replenishing their mugs. "So what's this I hear about a club?" Luke asked.  
  
"We started our own club at Yale, Luke!" Rory said.  
  
"Well... that's just great. Really, that's great."  
  
After the two had finished their coffee, Rory asked Sebastian, "Wanna go do something?"  
  
"Sure," he replied.  
  
The two slid off their stools and walked to the door.  
  
"Bye Luke!" Rory called.  
  
They started wandering around town, saying hi to people they passed. People were used to seeing Sebastian around town now. He had been coming almost every weekend since that first over Christmas break. Everyone knew that it was only a matter of time before they got together. The Gilmore women were both the same: oblivious of who they liked until it smacked them in the face. Everyone was still waiting for Luke and Lorelai to notice, but Rory tended to have better luck with that sort of thing.  
  
They reached the Gilmore house. "I think we should study... at least a litttle bit," Rory said.  
  
"OK," Sebastian replied. "We only have two finals, but fine."  
  
They sat down across from each other at the breakfast table. Rory pulled out her books and began to study. Sebastian opened his books, but he studied Rory.  
  
"What are we, Rory?" he asked, suddenly.  
  
"What?" she asked.  
  
'What are we?"  
  
"Well... we're friends, right?" Rory asked, not quite sure where Sebastian was going with this.  
  
Sebastian frowned a moment, then stood, walked over to Rory and kissed her. Rory recoiled at first, in shock, but then she sat still, accepting the kiss, passively. He pulled away, a slight smile on his face.  
  
Rory gave a slow, slight nod, not to say yes, not to say no, just to move her head. She swallowed. "Sebastian-"  
  
"I really, really like you. I... I would have said something earlier, but you were so hung up on that Jesse guy-"  
  
"Jess," she whispered.  
  
"Yeah, him. So I just wanted to wait. But now, you're over him, so we can be together?" Sebastian smiled hopefully.  
  
Rory had never noticed how much of a little boy Sebastian was. He had that cocked head, that innocent smile, nothing was really wrong with him. He didn't do anything wrong. He never blew up at her for no reason, and if she got mad at him, he ended up apologizing. It was nice, for a change. It was safe. And though she had never seen Sebastian in that way, she thought she could. In fact, she was already beginning to, in those five seconds.  
  
Rory smiled, and nodded again, this time with feeling behind it.  
  
"Yeah, I... I think that would be good."  
  
Sebastian smiled again and leaned in to kiss her again. This time, she responded. When they pulled away, she was smiling. His kisses were just like him. Sweet, slow, and yet.... she licked her lips... almost apologetic? 


	17. They Would Never Know

Jenna McIntyre.  
  
Jess applauded as he watched his best friend go up onto the stage in the school auditorium to recieve her diploma from the headmaster. She did a little bow as she walked from the headmaster and then glanced over to Jess as she moved the tassel from one side of her cap to the other, giving him a little smile and then doing a little dance as she left to the other side of the stage and sat down with the rest of the class.  
  
Jess Mariano.  
  
Jess walked up to the stage to get his diploma. He looked out into the audience. A sea of blank faces, none of which he recognized. There was no one there for him. He realized it shouldn't matter to him, but it did. There was no one there for him. No Jimmy, Sasha, or Lily. He hadn't invited them, and if he had, he doubted they would have come.  
  
His duffel bag was in the gym. He had told them he was moving out that morning. He kept trying to convince himself that he wasn't running away again, but he wouldn't believe it. He supposed he was running away, but it wasn't the same kind of running away. This time he was going somewhere, not just leaving somewhere. He had decided to move back to New York again. He had an internship at the Times all lined up, a job waiting tables, and an apartment for lease. The key was in his pocket. The plane ticket was in his bag. His life savings were in his shoe.  
  
He glanced over to Jenna and smiled as he moved the tassel on his cap. A guarded smile, one that no one else would be able to read, but she knew him almost as well as he knew himself now. He had told her a week ago that he was leaving. She had been sad, but happy for him. She had already booked a ticket to come see him over Thanksgiving.  
  
What if I'm not there anymore by then? he had asked.  
  
You will be. Trust me. You know and I know that you're going back for good.  
  
He glanced back out into the audience and sighed as he took his place. He would never admit it to anyone, but he had really wanted two people there for him. Just two, was that too much to ask?  
  
Yes, he decided, for those two people it was. The two people who had cared for him most out of anyone in his entire life. The two people who had let him in, given him a home, made him feel welcome, safe even. They had given him love. They had given him the feeling of a family that he had always denied that he had wanted. And he had thrown all of that back in their faces.  
  
If only... no. He wasn't going to do it. He wasn't going to imagine what it would have been like. But he couldn't help it. Like an unwelcome guest, the fantasy was coming into his mind and refusing to leave.  
  
Him. Standing on the stage, much as he had just a few moments ago, recieving his diploma. And in the audience: Luke standing up. He had removed the baseball cap, shaved. When he had left the diner like that, Lorelai had made fun of him, much as she had when he had gone on his date with Nicole. Luke was smiling as Jess moved the tassel from one side to the other. His eyes were shining, although neither man would ever admit to it. He had a true smile, a true look of pride on his face.  
  
And Rory. She stood next to him, looking like an angel, Gorgeous. Proud of him. And happy. No sign of anger or frustration because he hadn't done anything wrong. If only he hadn't done anything wrong.  
  
Congratulations class of 2004. Give yourselves a hand.  
  
Jess stood without enthieusiasm and clapped his hands together lightly, barely making a sound. As the rest of his class threw their caps up in the air, he just stood there, and then, thinking better of it, decided to do the same. He slowly removed his cap and threw it up. As he watched it come back down, the realization settled on him. He had done it. He had graduated.   
  
Luke would never believe it.   
  
Rory would. But she would never know. Neither of them would ever know.  
  
The cap came back down and setted into his hands.


	18. Boyfriend

What are we, Rory? he asked, suddenly.  
  
she asked.  
  
What are we?  
  
Well... we're friends, right? Rory asked, not quite sure where Sebastian was going with this.  
  
Sebastian frowned a moment, then stood, walked over to Rory and kissed her. Rory recoiled at first, in shock, but then she sat still, accepting the kiss, passively. He pulled away, a slight smile on his face.  
  
Rory gave a slow, slight nod, not to say yes, not to say no, just to move her head. She swallowed.   
  
I really, really like you. I... I would have said something earlier, but you were so hung up on that Jesse guy-  
  
she whispered.  
  
Yeah, him. So I just wanted to wait. But now, you're over him, so we can be together? Sebastian smiled hopefully.  
  
Rory had never noticed how much of a little boy Sebastian was. He had that cocked head, that innocent smile, nothing was really wrong with him. He didn't do anything wrong. He never blew up at her for no reason, and if she got mad at him, he ended up apologizing. It was nice, for a change. It was safe. And though she had never seen Sebastian in that way, she thought she could. In fact, she was already beginning to, in those five seconds.  
  
Rory smiled, and nodded again, this time with feeling behind it.  
  
Yeah, I... I think that would be good.  
  
Sebastian smiled again and leaned in to kiss her again. This time, she responded. When they pulled away, she was smiling. His kisses were just like him. Sweet, slow, and yet.... she licked her lips... almost apologetic?   
  
They smiled at each other, but neither one seemed to know what to do with themselves. Rory tried to think back, tried to remember how awkward relationships had been for her in the past, when they were just starting out, but it had been such a long time since she had started a new relationship. And now that she thought about it, when she had started going out with Jess, they had never had that awkward period. All of the awkwardness and teasing had happened when she was still safely in Dean's arms.  
  
You want to... go for a walk? she suggested to break the awkward silence.  
  
Yeah, sure. We could maybe check out Andrew's bookstore? See if the stuff we ordered last weekend came in? he asked.  
  
Sure. Let's go.  
  
They walked out the door, and Sebastian reached for Rory's hand. They walked down the street like that, and Rory caught a glance from Miss Patty. Uh-oh. Major damage control alert. She didn't mind if people found out about them, just so long as Rory herself got to tell Lorelai. She didn't want her to find out from someone else.  
  
Rory called as Miss Patty bustled off towards Babette's.   
  
Yes sweetheart? She stopped, and Rory dropped Sebastian's hand to go talk to her. Look, Patty. It's true, OK? she said in a quiet voice, Just please don't talk to anyone until I get to talk to my mom. Patty saw the pleading in Rory's eyes.  
  
Look, you're still the first to know, and I won't tell anyone else. You still get to tell everyone, I promise. Starting tonight. At eight. Rory knew that her mother was getting home from work at six and that she was meeting her at Luke's for dinner, so she figured that was enough time.  
  
Of course, love. We'll keep it quiet. Patty winked at Sebastian, who hadn't heard any of the conversation. He blushed, and Rory hugged Patty.  
  
Thanks Patty.  
  
What was that? Sebastian asked as he reclasped her hand.  
  
Just a little damage control.  
  
That evening, Rory and Sebastian arrived early at Luke's. Lorelai was late, as usual, but only by five minutes, which was techically early, Lorelai claimed. Lorelai time was twenty minutes later than everyone else time, so if she said she would be there at six, it really meant six-thirty. Early. Rory smiled as Lorelai re-explained her theory to her, and Luke rolled his eyes as he had the first time he himself had heard it.  
  
Luke poured coffee for the trio and took their orders. Hey mom? Rory said when Luke had left, Can I talk to you outside?  
  
Sure baby. Don't eat my food Seb!  
  
Sebastian shuddered at the nickname Lorelai had coined for him and had used constantly for about a month.  
  
Rory and Lorelai left the diner and stood on the sidewalk. What's up babe? Lorelai tried to guess why her daugher had such a huge grin on her face.  
  
Sebastian. He asked me out this afternoon.  
  
And you said?  
  
Yes! Of course.  
  
They both screeched and hugged. When they pulled away, Lorelai stared at her daughter's happy face. She had been waiting so long for the day where she could finally be sure that Rory was over Jess. It looked like that day had come.  
  
Let's go back inside, Lorelai said, I'm starving. Details at home?  
  
I'll leave nothing out. She paused. Hey mom?  
  
Yes babe?  
  
Are you going to tease him?  
  
Lorelai turned to go back into the diner, and Rory moved to follow. For a split second, she thought she saw someone she knew behind the counter getting the coffee pot. She blinked and he was gone. Trick of the light, she reasoned. She walked back into the diner. Back to Sebastian. Back to her boyfriend.


	19. Yes

He was scrawling on a yellow legal pad with a green pen. He had bought a huge box of Bic pens... black ones, but he'd lost every single one.  
  
He'd had his internship for about five months now, and an editor who had taken pity on the scowling, black-haired boy had taken a look at some of the stuff Jess wrote in his spare time and left on the little office they'd given him. The editor had then gotten the idea to let Jess write a little column. Not anything that appeared every day, or even every week, but once in a blue moon when there wasn't enough to fill the Arts section of the New York Times, Jess got to write anything he wanted and put it in the paper.   
  
He'd only been published about four times, but whenever he read a good book, he wrote a review on this legal pad. Then, if anyone ever asked him to write something by the end of the day, which they always did if they asked him to write at all, he would have something.  
  
Suddenly, a buzzer sounded throughout the tiny apartment. Jess frowned and put down his pen. He hadn't ordered Chinese food, so it probably meant that yet another person had come looking for the person who lived in apartment 6. Jess lived in 16, but the one had fallen off the door.  
  
Six is down- he started as he swung opened the door.  
  
A screech and a flurry of blonde hair and black clothing surrounded him, and he hugged it back.  
  
he said in greeting, granting the moment one of his rare smiles. He looked at her. She had cut her hair. It looked good on her. She was wearing tight black pants, a black sweater, black boots, and black sunglasses.  
  
What are you wearing? he asked.  
  
Don't I look so... New York? Jenna demanded.  
  
No... you look like you're going to a casual funeral.  
  
I don't know _what _you're talking about. So?  
  
  
  
Aren't you going to invite me in to see your place?  
  
No one's stopping you, he said, stepping slightly to the side and letting the door swing. Jenna reached for his face and pinched his cheek.  
  
Good ol' Mr. Surly. You know, the sun started shining again after you left.  
  
That's too bad.  
  
Jess walked back over to his desk and sat down. Jenna, dragging her suitcase behind her, came into the main room and plopped herself down on Jess' unmade bed. This is an _awesome _place, Jenna said.  
  
Eh... it keeps me dry.  
  
  
  
So what?  
  
Jenna reached into her bag and pulled out an envelope. She walked over to Jess desk and emptied its contents onto it. So, you definitely didn't tell me you were being _published._  
  
Where did you get those?  
  
I _clipped _them out of the _New York TIMES!  
  
_Jess just shook his head.  
  
So I'm sitting in my room at college, and I'm really bored, so I start reading my roommate's Times. Then, lo and behold, in the Arts section, I see this little tiny article. And I'm about to turn the page, but then what do I see in the byline? That's right... your name! So I clip it and then naturally I look for one the next day... nothing. And the next day... nothing. You've made a newspaper reader of me!  
  
Jess said in a monotone.  
  
Wow... I've missed this surliness. It's no wonder I left the sun and happiness of Los Angeles to come see you...  
  
I didn't put you on the plane.  
  
Jess, stop that. Your enthieusiasm is embarassing me.  
  
I'll be better.  
  
There was a silence.  
  
  
  
  
  
So... who's the girl?  
  
No girl.  
  
  
  
Jess shrugged.  
  
Did you ever call her?  
  
  
  
Do you actually want me to say her name?  
  
I don't know what you're babbling about.  
  
  
  
Jess shuddered. What about her?  
  
Did you take my advice?  
  
What advice?  
  
Did you call her?  
  
  
  
Ugh! Jess! Why not?  
  
He shrugged again.  
  
Well... no worries. We'll fix that up.  
  
There's nothing to fix.  
  
Jenna said warningly.  
  
he looked up, exasperated.  
  
Do you still love her?  
  
He couldn't speak, and it was his absence of words that led Jenna to the conclusion she shared with him, smiling broadly.  
  



	20. A Good Sign

So... I got five reveiws today, and I've been MIA for months. I felt kind of bad and kind of inspired, so I threw together this short, little chapter. Now I'm not promising a huge comback, because every time I do that I end up disappointing people, but you can thank my reviewers for helping me to my comeback.

Rory whispered, nudging his sleeping body softly to make sure that he was really asleep. When he didn't react, she lifted his arm from her shoulder and layed him down across the couch where they had been watching a movie. She pushed the power button on the remote and layed it softly on the floor next to the couch. Slowly and quietly, she backed out of the room and made her way up the stairs.

Knock, knock! she called out as she entered Lorelai's room.

Hey! It's you! Where's the new man?Sleeping. Poor guy can't make it all the way through the first two Godfather movies.

Lorelai pushed the magazines she had been reading off the bed and patted the newly empty spot on the comforter. Rory responded excitedly, sitting on the bed.

So? How did it happen?Well... we were walking back from Luke's... Slowly, Rory made her way through the tale, not leaving out any detail. Lorelai was the perfect listener, for once, squealing at all the appropriate moments and asking all the right questions.

You know what the strangest thing was though? Rory asked her mother as she finished the story.

What, babe?

Rory hesitated. Did she really want to talk about this? After all this time? Before she could even think about it, she said it. When I was going back into the diner... I thought I saw Jess behind the counter. Like he used to be. Lorelai didn't seem certain of how to react. She had thought that Jess had stopped being an issue months ago. It was almost exactly a year now since he had left... Was Rory still hung up on him?

I... I'm not really sure why. I mean, it did take me a long time to get over him... but... I am over him now. And I should be happy with Sebastian. Maybe... I don't know... maybe it's because I'm not used to being in a relationship? And Jess was my last boyfriend?Maybe you're right. Just...Just what?Just well... if you're not over Jess...Don't be silly. I'm totally over him. 100 over him. Jess who?But... if you weren't... it wouldn't really be fair to Sebastian to start something with him... would it?No... not really... but I am over him... so that's not really an issue, is it? Something caught in Rory's voice, but she swallowed the imminent tears. She smiled weakly. Lorelai nodded, knowing that Rory was as stubborn as she was.

Rory waited a moment before standing up. She began pacing. I mean... it wouldn't make sense for me _not _to be over him. _He _left _me._ And it was ages ago. Almost... a year. She stopped talking and stared straight ahead. She looked down at her watch. Exactly a year.Remember? Chilton got out really early last year because of the restoration that they were doing on one of the buildings. I graduated from Chilton on May 23rd... and Jess called me right after the ceremonies. Slowly, she sank back down onto the bed.

she breathed, A year. It doesn't feel that long.A year is way too long to be pining for someone.And I'm not. What am I talking about. I told Jess I wouldn't pine for him... and I didn't. You saw. There was no ice cream, no pajamas. It was just over. Finis.Rory... I... I loved Christopher for much longer than a year... Long after you were born and we went our separate ways. Maybe not consciously all the time, but... you saw how it was.Yeah... I guess.Seventeen years is a lot longer than one. I'm not saying it was good... or right... or healthy...We don't care about healthy.The point is... it was a long time. And it happened to me. I'm not saying that we're the same, because we're not. You're a lot more mature than I am... but you were a lot more mature at six. I'm not saying that you _are _still pining for Jess... and I'm not saying that you should break off this new thing with Sebastian, because I think it's great. I really do... I'm just saying that... if you _weren't _over Jess... it might be kind of normal, or at any rate, it wouldn't be as odd as you think it would be.

Rory was silent for a while, running thoughts through her head. Finally she spoke, slowly at first, as the ideas came together for her. I don't know if I was over Jess or not. I just... I think that whatever feelings I had for him I was trying to push away. I wanted to forget. But... now I have this new thing... this new boyfriend... and we deserve to be happy together. I don't want Jess messing things up for me any more than he has. I know you said never to throw my Jess box away... and I won't. I'm keeping it just like I kept the Dean box and you kept the Max box. But... I refuse to let him run my life from California any more. He's not here. He's a part of my past, but not a part of my future. I _will _be happy with Sebastian. I'm putting a lid on this Jess thing. It's done.I'm proud of you, sweetie. And I'm really happy for you and Sebastian.Well... you never liked Jess. Maybe I've found someone you actually approve of from the beginning. That has to be a good sign, right?


End file.
